Intellectual Property

George Santos Loses Cameo Copyright Case

Santos sued after the show Jimmy Kimmel Live! used short videos of Santos saying absurd things in exchange for money on the site Cameo—videos that Kimmel allegedly tricked Santos into making. The defendants moved to dismiss Santos’ complaint on the grounds that they made a fair use of Santos’ videos.

Copyright Law Used to Deny Access to Covenant School Shooter’s Manifesto

Vidal v. Elster, or, What Happens When the Supreme Court Lacks a Fundamental Theory of the First Amendment

The Court’s struggle to find a deciding principle stems directly from the siloing of First Amendment law into discrete doctrines – public forums, government benefits, and so on. The fact that this case did not neatly fit into these categories is what led Justice Thomas to abandon logic for history, Justice Kavanaugh to give up…

Federal Court Holds That Copyright Act Preempts X’s Web Scraping Claims

In a blockbuster ruling that is bound to have far-reaching implications, including in the swarm of copyright infringement cases brought against AI platforms, a California federal court recently dismissed a complaint that X Corp. brought against web scraping company Bright Data.

Supreme Court Provides for Broader Availability of Damages in Copyright Suits

The Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision in Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy, No. 22-1078, holding that damages are available under the Copyright Act for acts of infringement that predate the initiation of suit by more than three years.

Top Gun Lawsuit Shot Down

The 1983 magazine article “Top Guns” and Paramount Pictures’ recent blockbuster movie Top Gun: Maverick are not substantially similar under copyright law, a California federal judge ruled this month.

With the ELVIS Act, Tennessee Shows its Burning Love for Recording Artists

Tennessee, home to both Music City® (Nashville) and the Blues (Memphis), has taken a swing at regulating generative AI’s potential harm to musicians and recording artists.

Authors’ Vicarious Infringement Claims Against ChatGPT Dismissed

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California recently dismissed most of a collection of claims brought by a group of authors against OpenAI, alleging that the artificial intelligence company infringes their copyright when it uses their works to train its large language model ChatGPT.

Supreme Court, Second Circuit Consider Copyright Infringement Statute of Limitation Implications

Neither case squarely presented the question of when a copyright claim ‘accrues,’ understood by many federal circuits as when the copyright owner first “discovers” the allegedly infringing use. However, the challenges that both cases raise about the discovery rule’s application may hint at its potential impermanence.

Fourth Circuit Rules Against News Org’s Use of Ted Nugent Photograph

The Fourth Circuit ruled that a news organization’s use of a photograph of musician Ted Nugent did not constitute fair use, siding with the photographer who argued that the news organization did not alter or add any new expression required to overcome the requirements for proper attribution.